Along
with Randy Newman,
Van
Dyke Parks, Harry Nilsson, and some others, David Ackles helped widen
the
definition of contemporary singer-songwriters in the late 1960s. This
was
a group of performers open to incorporation of many non-rock pop and
theatrical
influences into their work, and not based in folk-rock, like so many of
the other early singer-songwriters were. Nor were they conventional
rock
or pop singers. Somehow, nonetheless, they recorded albums that were
marketed
to the rock audience. Of all the names mentioned above, David Ackles is
certainly the most obscure, even if his quartet of albums won him a
cult
audience that included Elton John and Elvis Costello.

David Ackles,
his
self-titled
1968 Elektra debut, was an unusual effort even by the label's own high
standards for introducing original talents. Ackles's dark, brooding
songs
and low croon-rumble of a voice delivered cerebral lyrics painting the
everyday adventures of misfits and their struggles to find meaning and
spirituality. What could have been overblown in other hands was given a
stately dignity by the stoicism, vacillating between determination and
resignation, of Ackles's vocals and observations. Far more than any of
his subsequent albums, the record's arrangements were tailored for rock
ears, with ethereal psychedelic-tinged guitar and organ that weren't
too
unlike those heard on other Elektra LPs of the time, such as Tim
Buckley's
early releases.

Ackles's path to
a record
deal
was about as strange as it could be for a late-1960s underground rock
artist.
Unlike virtually every other such performer of the era, David had
virtually
nothing in the way of either a folk or rock resume, or even
professional
experience as a solo live performer. Already in his early thirties, his
principal background was in musical theater. He had met David Anderle
in
the theater department of the University of Southern California, where
the two Davids had gone to school together. Years later, Anderle was
working
at Elektra Records' west coast office, and Ackles did some demos for
his
old friend.

It's still
unclear whether
the original intention was for Ackles to write songs for others, or to
record him as a solo artist from the start. Before his death in 1999,
Ackles
told author Mark Brend (in the book American Troubadours), "My
intention
was to have lots of other, much better singers record my songs...I
believe
the truth is that [Elektra president] Jac Holzman couldn't interest any
other singers on his label in recording my stuff, so was forced into
offering
that chance to me." To the recollection of Ackles's widow, Janice Vogel
Ackles, "David Anderle called him and said he wanted David to write
some
songs 'cause he remembered how talented he was, or something to that
effect.
I think David Ackles's understanding initially was that they were
interested
in him as a songwriter, and then when he did some demos, everybody
said,
'Well, I don't know who else is gonna sing this material. I think it's
really your stuff, and you should do it.' I remember David Ackles
telling
me that once he submitted the material, he didn't think he was
going
to record it. He thought that they were going to farm it out to other
people,
so it came as a big surprise to him."

When Ackles first
played
his
songs for Elektra, "I probably had some trepidation, 'cause David was
very
much involved in musical comedy music, which I hated," Anderle admits.
"Then 'Road to Cairo,' 'Down River,' and these things just knocked me
out.
I realized he was writing those kind of songs, instead of the
little
musical comedy things he was writing in college. When David played the
songs, I believe Russ Miller and I took him into the studio and cut
some
demos with him. Russ was running Jac's publishing company at the time.
We played the demos for Jac, and Jac certainly gave the okay to proceed
[with the album]." Anderle, not even a producer at the time (though
he'd
go on to produce many albums over the next couple of decades, including
Judy Collins's Who Knows Where the Time Goes), and Miller would
be co-producers for David Ackles.

The album's
backing was
supplied
by musicians who had been in the Electric Flag and Iron Butterfly;
guitarist
Doug Hastings had been in the Daily Flash and, briefly, Buffalo
Springfield.
(Most of them would go on to play in the late-1960s Elektra rock band
Rhinoceros.)
"I remember what a bitch it was making that first album," says Anderle.
"We used him and his piano as a bed, and added instruments afterwards.
I'm not even sure if he cut anything with a band. We might have cut
some
of the things with the boys playing, but I remember working really hard
matching stuff up after the fact. It was a lot of overdubbing, making
stuff
fit in, and it gave it a really interesting feel. It didn't sound like
anything else." Though Ackles had never recorded with rock musicians or
even done any solo live shows, Anderle maintains the singer-songwriter
was comfortable being the showcased solo recording artist: "He was very
adaptable and so full of music anyway. He went into it like a fish in
water."

Standout tracks
included
"Sonny
Come Home," which was something like the film The Swimmer set to music
in its disconsolate tale of a disastrous attempt to go home again;
"Down
River," in which Ackles sounded just a bit like a counterpart to fellow
grim balladeer Scott Walker; and the six-minute "His Name Is Andrew,"
with
its quasi-religious tone and elegiac organ. Certainly the most popular
tune, inasmuch as any David Ackles song could be said to be popular,
was
the first-person drifter narrative "The Road to Cairo," covered in
Britain
by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger, & the Trinity (as their
non-charting
follow-up to their UK Top Five cover of Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's on
Fire").

Anderle "never
could
understand
why that wasn't a hit," and Ackles even put a French-language version
on
a B-side of a 1968 UK Elektra single. According to Anderle, "Somebody
thought
that David would have a shot in France, because of the nature of
Charles
Aznavour and the French ballad singers. Jacques Brel, I think, was the
person that was mentioned. I think Elektra figured he would have a shot
internationally, so he did the French version of the song." It didn't
catch
on in Europe, and David Ackles wasn't a hit anywhere, though
like
all his albums it was a success with critics. The pattern continued on
his second album, Subway to the Country (also reissued on CD by
Collectors' Choice Music), in which he began to shift from rock to the
more theatrical and orchestral foundations of his artistic vision.